Double SuicideDirector: Masahiro Shinoda.1969, 105 minutes, B&W, Japanese with English subtitles.Compelling drama based on a traditional Bunraku puppet play which is performed within the film itself about a married man who plans a suicide pact with his mistress.LLC Library

JP 012

Funeral, The

Director: Juzo Itami.with Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki.1985, 114 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.Darkly funny tale of a contemporary Japanese family's skewed attempts to conduct a traditional Buddhist service for their late patriarch. Controversial, compelling comic effort on the part of director and actors.LLC Library

JP 009

Japan Invades China

PBS Video, 1989, 51 minutes.1. Highlights Japan's expansion into French Indochina, the Dutch Indies, Burma, Malaya and the Philippines.2. Focuses on the diplomatic and economic pressure placed on Japan prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.JCU Library

D443.J36

Japanese Version, The

1991, 56 minutes.The film explores Japan's fascination with things American, pointing out that in borrowing from other cultures, there emerges a distinct Japanese slant on such things as American baseball, the 1950's, weddings, and love hotels.JCU Library

DS821.5.U5.J36

Japanese, The Spoken Language

Part 2.LLC Library

JP 013-2

Japanese, The Spoken Language

Part 2.LLC Library

JP 014-2

Le Ga Takusan Aru Noni, Totmo Shizika Desu

Video Lesson 23.LLC Library

JP 015

Let's Learn Japanese

Video Lesson 31.LLC Library

JP 017

Music of Bunraku

1991, 29 minutes.Shows the exotic drama of Bunraku, the puppet theater of Japan, and is intended to enable the viewer to understand its music as well. The musical styles, notations and performers of Bunraku, as well as its historic roots, as illustrated in antique paintings and prints are explained. Artists from the National Bunraku Theater play Bunraku music and perform "The Massacre of a Geisha House in Ise".JCU Library

Director: Kon Ishikawa.with Machiko Kyo, Ganjiro Nakamura, Junko Kano, Tatsuya Nakadai.1960, 107 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.An elderly Japanese man with a beautiful young wife finds it difficult to reconcile his feelings of desire with his decreasing potency in this new interpretation of the love-death theme in which some of the most sordid of human actions are captured by means of the sheerest physical beauty ... Erotic obsession is presented with such near-claustrophobic intensity that one longs for outdoor scenes ... everything is hidden secreted away.LLC Library

Tomita stars in this gripping drama based on one woman's journey to a new life spawned by a photograph. Tomita's character travels to Hawaii in order to marry a man whom she has never met, with only a picture to help her find him. Once there, the tropical splendor of Hawaii inspires her toward a passionate romance.LLC Library

MLAM 049

Quiet Duel

Director: Akira Kurosawawith Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura and Miki Sanjko.1949, 95 minutes, Black & White, Japanese with English subtitles.Based on a play by Kasuo Kikuta, this early Kurosawa film concerns an army surgeon who, during a life-saving operation, contaminates himself with syphilis, which, at the time, was virtually incurable. Now suffering with the dreaded disease he is forced to abandon his fiancée but finds the faith to redouble his work to restore people to health, including the man from whom he contracted the disease.LLC Library

JP 028

Ran

Director: Akira Kurosawa.with Tatsuya Nakadai Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki.1985, 160 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.A Japanese version of King Lear and a brilliant blend of Japanese history and Shakespeare's themes. It is a triumphant film about ruthless ambition, evil plots and "chaos" - the meaning of the title in Japanese.LLC Library

JP 021

Raw Fish and Pickle

with notesTraditional Rural and Seafaring LifeLLC Library

JP 008 - B

Rhapsody in August

Director: Akira Kurosawawith Sachiko Murase, Hidetaka Yoshioka, and Richard Gere.1991, 98 minutes, Japanese with yellow English subtitles.The film tells of 4 children whose visit to their grandmother rekindles her frightening memories of August 9th, 1945, when an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The children learn about the horrors of war, and when an American cousin arrives, more dark secrets of the past are revealed.LLC Library

JP 010

Sanjuro

Director: Akira Kurosawawith Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuja Nakadai.1962, 96 minutes, Black & White, Japanese with English subtitles.The hero of Kurosawa's Yojimbo returns to help a group of very earnest, very green, very young samurai get their clan rid of corruption. As in Yojimbo, much of the comic effect comes from imaginative composition and incongruous movement.LLC Library

JP 025

Scola

7 minutes.Creighton University.LLC Library

Look in MLGE

Seven Samurai, The [re-mastered]

Director: Akira Kurosawa.with Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura.1954, 208 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.Akira Kurosawa's masterwork is set in 16th-century Japan, where a small village hires a group of professional warriors to protect them from roving bandits. Fabulous battle scenes are mixed with characters filled with emotion and humanity.LLC Library

JP 023

Sonatine

Director: Takeshi Kitano.with Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Mansanobu Katsumura, et al.1993, ??, Japanese with English subtitles.Murakawa, a ruthless gangster, is sent to intervene in a gang war on the tropical island of Okinawa. There, for a brief interlude, he and his men enjoy a respite from violence before the inevitable showdown.LLC Library

JP 024

Stray Dog

Director: Akira Kurosawawith Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Ko Kimura, Keiko Awaji.1994, 122 minutes, Black & White, Japanese with English subtitles.A first rate thriller in which Kurosawa has acknowledged his debt to Georges Simenon. Mifune plays rookie Detective Murakami, who loses his gun only to discover that it has fallen into the hands of a killer. Terrified of losing his job, his search takes him into the Tokyo underworld, full of postwar shortages, divinely hellish under Kurosawa's odd-angled lensing and staccato editing... Stray Dog is a Dostojevskian saga of guilt, and expiation, by association.LLC Library

JP 027

Style of the Classic Japanese Noh Theater, The

198?, 17 minutes, English.Analyzes and demonstrates the style of Japan's oldest form of theater. Commentary on and analysis of the movements and stance of the Noh performers.JCU Library

PN2924.5N6.S78

Tampopo

Director: Juzo Itami.with Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki.1986, 114 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.Off-the-wall entry from Japan concerns the put upon owner of a noodle restaurant and the bizarre drifters who try to aid her in making her place a success. Tremendous, tangential comedy that may be the first cinematic celebration of the joy of eating.LLC Library

JP 022

Tetsudai o Sasemashita

Video Lesson 28.LLC Library

JP 016

Tomorrow and Yesterday

- with notesModern Technology and Ancient Culture.LLC Library

JP 008 - A

U.S./Japan Relations

1990, 85 minutes.The honorable Ishihara Shintaro discusses the ideas presented in his book:The Japan That Can Say No. His views are seen as advancing a Japan that will challenge the U.S. economically and politically.JCU Library

HF1456.5.J3.U53

Working Couple, A

with notesUrban Family Life.LLC Library

JP 008 - D

Yojimbo

Director: Akira Kurosawawith Toshiro Mifune.1961, 151 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles.A war-weary samurai is caught in the middle of a feud between rival factions in a village. A sly commentary on action films in general which also inspired A Fistful of Dollars.LLC Library

JP 004

Your Life in Japan

LLC Library

JP 018

Densha Otoko (Train Man)

2005 Run Time: 101 minutes Language: Japanese Subtitles: English DVD

Director: Shosuke Murakami
Actors: Takayuki Yamada, Miki Nakatani

Computer engineer Otaku (the Japanese term for "geek") is an average young man, dressed in unstylish clothes and dorky glasses. But as luck would have it, he encounters a pretty young woman on a commuter train and saves her from a lecherous molester, falling in love with her at first sight. A few days later he receives a thank-you message from the woman along with a set of Hermes teacups. Having never had a girlfriend or received a gift from a girl in his life, Otaku seeks out his pals on his BBS website for advice using his codename Train_Man (Densha Otoko): "How should I ask her out?" Deeply interested in Train Man's first love, his BBS pals eagerly supply him with advice. Encouraged by their support, Train_Man undergoes a total makeover for his first-ever date with "Hermess". Little does he know that he is about to ignite an Internet phenomenon...

Epic Action Drama. Set in Japan during the 1870s, The Last Samurai tells the story of Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country's first army in the art of modern warfare. As the Emperor attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his own sense of honor to guide him.